All or nothing for the #188 Pro-Am Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 of Garage 59 in Valencia

It’s the final round of the 2021 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup this weekend from the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, Spain and it’s an “all or nothing” journey down south for the Garage 59 Aston Martin Racing team as effectively a class win along with a whole lot of luck is what they now need in order to lift the Pro-Am Class crown by the end of play on Sunday.

Last time out in the Sprint Cup at Brands Hatch at the end of August, the #188 Pro-Am Class Garage 59 car of Alex West and Jonny Adam enjoyed the spoils of two further class podiums at their home event with a P3 and P2 in the two races respectively BUT each result was behind on track the class leading #77 Barwell Lamborghini car of Miguel Ramos and Henrique Chaves.

That crew now leads the Pro-Am class by 14 points from the #188 crew but with the #77 being so dominant and consistent, the only way that the #188 could possibly snatch the crown away from them at the death would be by finishing ahead of the #77 crew in race one as a must and then hope that the #77 car finishes more than one car below them in race two as well.

Another point of note would be that the present third places Pro-Am crew of Mercedes AMG GT3 runners Valentin Pierburg and Dominik Baumann are just one point below the Aston Martin crew making for an intense three-way battle (certainly during race one) but also potentially race two should events not go in the favour of the #77 crew.

Of course, joining the #188 crew will be the #159 Silver Cup pairing of Nicolai Kjaergaard and Tuomas Tujula. These young racers have faced a GT3 season that anyone would reasonably want to forget with both accident damage and technical issues blighting their season from start until now but it would be great to see these two go out on something of a high!

Both one-hour races take place on Sunday 26th September and will again be streamed live via the series social media channels.

Photo credits – GTWCE / Team